April 12, 2011
My friend's Beagle has recently started snapping ar people. Do you think it could be a medical issue? She was fine until about 2 weeks ago.
Full Question:
My best friend owns a six year old spayed female mixed breed beagle. This dog has always been very friendly until two weeks ago. She has snapped at the faces of four people recently and the last attack resulted in her four year old grandson being bitten on the face. This behavior was not provoked, each incident happened when someone was only petting the dog, my first advice to my friend is to have her checked by the vet to see if their is an underlying medical problem which has caused this sudden behavior towards people. My friend is quite upset as she loves her dog but is fearful of the consequences. Do you have any further suggestions? 
Ed's Answer:
Sounds to me like a dominance issue and not medical (I could be wrong but I doubt it).
1- Now that this happened she has to change her thinking on how she lives with the dog. Her current thinking is what got her into this problem – so she either changes or finds a new home for the dog or put it down – and putting a dog down for this is a lame excuse.
2- Read the articles I wrote titled PREVENTING DOG BITES IN CHILDREN You can find these if you go to the list of training articles and scroll down.
3- Read the article I wrote titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT AND AGGRESSIVE DOGS – also the Q&A on this issue
4- Get a dog crate and use it. You may want to read the article I wrote on GROUND WORK BEFORE OBEDIENCE TRAINING.
5- One of the first steps in solving EVERY behavioral problems is to run the dog through a sound obedience training program (one that uses a distraction, correction and maintenance phase) - get a prong collar or one of my dominant dog collars and my 4 hour DVD on Basic Dog Obedience.
1- Now that this happened she has to change her thinking on how she lives with the dog. Her current thinking is what got her into this problem – so she either changes or finds a new home for the dog or put it down – and putting a dog down for this is a lame excuse.
2- Read the articles I wrote titled PREVENTING DOG BITES IN CHILDREN You can find these if you go to the list of training articles and scroll down.
3- Read the article I wrote titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT AND AGGRESSIVE DOGS – also the Q&A on this issue
4- Get a dog crate and use it. You may want to read the article I wrote on GROUND WORK BEFORE OBEDIENCE TRAINING.
5- One of the first steps in solving EVERY behavioral problems is to run the dog through a sound obedience training program (one that uses a distraction, correction and maintenance phase) - get a prong collar or one of my dominant dog collars and my 4 hour DVD on Basic Dog Obedience.
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